To market their products, pharmaceutical companies commonly provide samples of the products to physicians, such as sample prescription medications. Typically, a pharmaceutical representative visits a physician's office where the representative discusses with the physician such things as the applications of their product and advantages of their product over competing products. The representative may then provide the physician with free samples of the product (packaged as, for example, blister packs, bottles or sample boxes) to prescribe to patients. This serves two principle purposes. First, it is hoped the patients will like the samples and will want to continue use of the product. Second, it is hoped that the physician will learn from the patients using the samples that the product is effective, causing the physician to prescribe or recommend the product to future patients. There are also other reasons pharmaceutical companies give out samples. For example, pharmaceutical company sponsored patient assistance programs provide both samples and regular prescriptions of medications to those unable to afford the medications.
However, the current process of distributing and prescribing sample prescriptions suffers from numerous problems. First, there is insufficient control over who receives the samples. It is intended that the physicians or pharmaceutical companies give the samples to deserving patients. However, the current system has inadequate control checks, occasionally resulting in samples being misused by patients (e.g. used abusively) or redirected to unintended users. Second, the current system typically has insufficient examination procedures to determine whether or not a sample prescription is right for a particular patient. For example, the patient may be taking a different drug that adversely interacts with a sample medication. Third, the companies providing the products (e.g., pharmaceutical companies) desire better sample prescription tracking information for marketing purposes. Current prescription tracking systems only provide limited information, which is typically inadequate for comprehensive marketing evaluations. Other attributes of the current system are also inefficient for the provision of products from the physician's perspective, including the need for additional paperwork related to ordering or receiving physical stock of the products. This may be in the form of shipping companies requiring signatures to validate receipt of products, which demand more time throughout the process from the physician. The involvement of pharmaceutical company representatives also creates inefficiencies from the regular turnover of personnel, which may result in depleted sample stocks not being replenished in a timely fashion. This disrupts patient care for the physician. Fourth, the current sample prescription system frequently results in waste. For example, pharmaceutical companies frequently provide sample prescriptions to physicians in packaged sample containers that have expiration dates. The packaging itself is expensive, and further waste is added if the samples are not given to patients prior to a sample's expiration date. Disposal of expired samples poses a health risk to the general public in that samples may end up either in dumpsters or flushed into the water system. This has resulted in significant levels of medication found in lakes and municipal water systems. Fifth, after new U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“U.S. FDA”) Black Box Labeling regulations were implemented, all antidepressant packaging inserts inside sample boxes needed to be recalled and replaced with U.S. FDA compliant samples having updated inserts. This resulted in expensive shipping and repackaging costs. Sixth, as a further result of new U.S. FDA Black Box warnings and labeling, pharmaceutical companies have been initiating new policies resulting in discontinuing distribution of many types of samples (e.g., certain classes of medication) to pediatric practices. Consequently, the pharmaceutical companies are requiring the physicians to sign “reinstatement requests” in which the physician certifies that they examine and treat adult patients that require that class of medication. Otherwise, the pharmaceutical company will not provide the samples to the physician. This is an often lengthy process requiring the completion of many forms that may not be readily accessible. This causes delay and additional work for the physician in obtaining samples, which may disrupt patient care. Moreover, there has been no mechanism in place to streamline this authorization process.
The overriding impetus for pharmaceutical companies to move away from traditional sampling is that the cost of packaging, warehousing and distributing the samples, under current practices, is very expensive. This ultimately raises the cost of medications from production all the way down to what the patient eventually pays for their prescriptions. One fashion in which pharmaceutical companies have attempted to address this is by introducing different media, which can be distributed to patients by physicians and taken to a dispensing pharmacy to collect the sample. Current media in the marketplace include paper vouchers and magnetic strip cards, among other things (all of which have expiration dates which leave gaps in initiating new prescriptions written, and require additional storage space in the prescribers' offices). These approaches remove the physician from needing to maintain sample box inventory at their office, but create an inconvenience in the process by requiring the transfer of the media between the participants in the sample chain. While it does create a partial electronic record of the dispensing of the sample to the patient, many significant data gaps in the sample's life-cycle remain.
Some attempts have been made to remedy some of the above-described problems. For example, some are attempting to implement radio frequency identification (“RFID”) systems. However, such RFID systems have many disadvantages, including, among other things, being unreliable. Other gaps in the RFID systems as applied to pharmaceutical company samples include a maximum radius for tracking, high expense in tracking to the individual package (beyond a bulk shipment), and the absence of recipient information (e.g. gender, age, diagnosis code, etc.) that is critical in the distribution of a healthcare product such as a prescription drug sample.
For the foregoing reasons, there is a need for improved systems and methods for giving sample prescriptions.